Natchez Trace Parkway, National Parkway and All-American Road in Mississippi, US
Natchez Trace Parkway is a two-lane road stretching more than seven hundred kilometers through Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee, linking Natchez to Nashville. The route follows old paths and passes through open meadows, dense forests and rolling hills.
Indigenous groups used this connection for over ten thousand years as a travel corridor between settlements and hunting grounds. European settlers began expanding the route as a trade road between the Gulf and the northern river valleys in the late eighteenth century.
The name recalls an old trading path used by the Natchez people and early merchants moving between river ports. Along the route, visitors see reconstructed inns, burial mounds and markers that show how travelers once paused and traded goods.
A visitor center near Tupelo provides maps, guides and information about hiking trails and rest stops along the route. The entire road has no traffic lights or intersections with other vehicles, allowing for calm driving.
Cyclists and hikers share certain sections without motorized traffic, allowing undisturbed encounters with deer, wild turkeys and other animals. At some points, narrow bridges cross streams that still follow the same width as the old merchant paths.
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